Microsoft's epic BUILD conference is happening the week of September 12, and that Wednesday, on September 14, 2011, I'll be cohosting the BUILD Blogger Bash meetup at the Bar Louie Tavern & Grill in Anaheim, California, along with fellow Windows bloggers Ed Bott, Mary Jo Foley, Kip Kniskern, Marques Lyons, Ryan and Travis Lowdermilk, Rafael Rivera, and Long Zheng. There should be some great conversation, as Microsoft will be doing the full Windows 8 mind meld just one day prior. See you in Anaheim, and be sure to RSVP on the site!

HP Is Killing It's PC Business. OK, Fine. But What About Microsoft?

So I think we can all agree that when the number-one seller of PCs, HP, announces that it's quitting the PC business, things are getting a little weird. But what about Microsoft? HP wasn't just the biggest PC maker; it was also Microsoft's closest partner. And though HP's decision last year to buy Palm and focus on webOS over Windows (hilarious in retrospect) was a dent in that relationship, it seemed like things would work out. I mean, HP followed Microsoft down every rabbit hole imaginable, from Pocket PCs to Windows Home Servers to tablet PCs to Media Center PCs. There wasn't a clearly pointless Microsoft project that HP wouldn't back, in fact. Now? Not so much. But some people are starting to wonder whether Microsoft shouldn't really enter the hardware world once and for all and buy HP's PC business. I just don't see this happening. But after the Google/Motorola and HP/webOS/PC stuff over the past week, I'm starting to realize that no one can guess what's next. Hang on, people. It's going to get ugly, I bet.

Windows 8 Will Have an App Store, Sure. But Is It Really Called ... App Store??

When Steven Sinofsky blogged about the feature teams at Microsoft working on Windows 8, it set off alarm bells all over the blogosphere because he finally revealed a bit of interesting information about the next Windows. (Read my blog post about this event.) In that post, Sinofsky listed "App Store" as one of the feature teams, leading a lot of my less sophisticated blogger brethren to excitedly announce that this "confirmed" the existence of an app store in Windows. Um, right. We already knew that Windows 8 would have an app store, so that's not actually news. But what about that name? It's exactly the name that Apple uses for its own, um, app store, and it's been suing other companies who use similar names (including Amazon, which uses the term "Appstore for Android" for its own store). Would Microsoft really use this exact name? I don't think so, actually. But of course we really don't have that much longer to wait: Microsoft will reveal all at the aforementioned BUILD conference next month.

Microsoft, Apple Among Those Bidding for 15 Million Unit Tablet Contract

Microsoft is among the companies bidding for a Turkish government contract that would supply 15 million tablet computing devices to school children over 4 years. Apple is also bidding, which makes sense, since Apple currently sells the very popular iPad device. But Microsoft doesn't sell tablets and probably won't ever do such a thing. So the theory is that Microsoft is bidding on a Windows 8-based tablet with the PC maker to be specified later. Either way, it should be an interesting battle, and you can rest assured that whoever wins will be chortling about this publicly for some time to come.

The cloud computing Chicken Littles will love this one: Microsoft's fledgling Office 365 service suffered its first outage this week when its Outlook Web App component was unavailable for thousands of US-based users for about two hours on Wednesday. (SharePoint and Lync Online remained available during this time, and it seemed to affect only certain areas.) Microsoft blamed a "networking issue" that affected one of its North America data centers and is still investigating the root cause of the issue. But whatever. Two hours is ... well, it's not horrible, actually. And in some ways, this is really just the cloud computing version of a hazing. The big question is how often it happens over time.

Unintentionally Comic Headline of the Week

What's the saying about comedy? Ah, right: It's tragedy plus time. With that in mind, check out this headline from MarketWatch, which appeared right before HP announced its blockbuster decision to kill off both its webOS and PC lines: HP's Poor Tablet Debut Could Color Results. Color results? LOL. It just sent a seismic shock throughout the PC industry. Nice prediction.

Apple Trying to Convince Europe to Ban All Samsung Galaxy Smartphones and Tablets

There's competition and then there's outright thuggery. Apple this week is demanding that a European Union (EU) district court ban all of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets on the continent because of their extensive (in Apple's words) patent infringements. And, well, because Apple has got a real bee in its bonnet over the Galaxy products, which it thinks are blatant rip-offs of its iPhone and iPad devices. How big a bully is Apple? Well, it owns about 70 percent of the tablet market in the EU, compared with about 9 percent for Samsung. A ruling is expected in mid-September.

Xbox 360 Is a Huge Success ... Just Not in Japan

Japanese consumers just can't seem to embrace the Xbox 360, and with slow sales entering their umpteenth years, retailers in that country are allegedly planning to stop selling the console. Someone should tell Microsoft. The software giant said this week that it remained committed to Japan. "It's a challenging market," Microsoft EMEA Vice President Chris Lewis said this week. "We are up against very strong competition there. All of our competition is strong. We're very respectful of what Sony and Nintendo do and where they've come from and what they bring." What they bring, of course, is products and services that are designed and developed in Japan, which, let's face it, has its own curious views about how things work. I don't think anything Microsoft does with the Xbox 360 is ever going to change that.

This Week, on the Windows Weekly Podcast

Leo, Mary Jo, and I recorded the latest episode of the Windows Weekly podcast on Thursday as usual, and the new episode should be available for download by the end of the weekend on iTunes, the Zune Marketplace, and wherever else quality podcasts are found, in both audio and video formats. Note that I'll be appearing on the TWiT podcast, live from Petaluma, California, on Sunday.

Discuss this Article 54

Is it that surprising HP wants to be IBM and not Dell?
While there is still money to be made in commodity PC hardware sales, the margins are slim, the competition great and the long term outlook does not show any signs of getting better. (I dont think pcs will go away anytime soon, but there is an impact from tablets and other devices)
The money is made selling enterprise software and supporting the hardware.

@infiniteloop - I am not sure where you see that I said stealing a companies IP was OK. What I said, and a lot of people agree with, is that the current round of patent wars borders on lunacy. IP is entirely different than a rectangular device with a grid of icons on the home screen. All of the companies are fighting this patent war - Apple, MS, Google, HTC, Samsung, and other. It is bad for consumers, plain and simple. The only derived benefit is that of the lawyers.
Using your line of thought, Apple is protecting its grid of icons on the home screen. Why would they submit as evidence a picture not showing the competitors home screen, but showing the "App Tray" instead? They also seem to think that the shape and size of the iPhone is IP. Why not present into evidence an untouched photo of the phone in question rather than one adjusted to appear as if they are precisely the same size? The reason is, because there are lawyers involved and that is what they do...stretch the truth to just short of lying.

You two need to settle down. We have one of the most awesome WinInfos ever and you are letting it pass by like Tom Seleck letting the part for Indiana Jones go by. Refocus people. We have an Office 365 outage after a declaration of superiority, we have an epic HP meltdown in the PC\tablet space with the CEO blaming the iPad specifically mere weeks after Paul told us no such thing was possible and we have Windows 8 tablet vaporware competing against a successfully shipping product. C'mon this is good stuff.

tayme:
I'm pretty sure nobody cares about your opinion.
Fact is, the Patent system is enforceable by Law. It doesn't matter that you don't agree with it. It is the law and these companies are working within it.
You might not like it.
But that's just tough.

Tayme:
I totally disagree that the patent wars will hurt the consumer.
Patents are there to protect IP. If it's not your IP, leave it alone and innovate something that addresses the problem in a more efficient and creative way.
If it's OK to steal anybody's IP, why bother investing in Product Development for someone else's benefit? That just leads to stagnation. Witness IE when there was no competition.

From the WSJs liveblog transcript of HPs conference call today:
The tablet effect is real, and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations, Apotheker says, explaining the movement of consumers from PCs to tablets as one of the problems with the PC division. So H-P is exploring options for its unit that may include separation through spinoff or other transactions.
Jon Gruber: "Translation: Were getting out of the PC business because of the iPad."
Is everyone ready for Thurrott's nervous breakdown when his denial defenses can no longer hold?

HP: it will just get snapped by an asian company. after all that's where most of the pc growth is at.
Office365 Out:
they need to do better. they remain better than google though which has had several gmail outages.
apple:
It is a clear sign of the post-apple world. apple is desperate. their phone marketwhare has plateau and they can't catch up android. Their tablet marketshare went from 99.% to 70% just with the introduction of android tablets. that's a nearly 30% drop. Apple is falling appart faster than they can react and so their latest tactic? sue. However with the recent google aquisition of motorolla, apple will have no choice but to roll over like a puppy and pay dead. google now has the patents it needs to defend itself and apple clearly violates them since google wouldn't have spend 12B getting them if it didn't think it was the cure for the apple problems.
This is the post apple world. get used to it.

Thurrott calling the iPad an iDud is quickly surpassing the ridiculousness of Dvorak calling the mouse basically useless.
It's perhaps cathartic for Dvorak that a mouse-less device will supplant the PC.

Wow, HP looking to exit the PC business...I never saw that one coming! I wonder if that will drive PC prices up with one big vendor out? Perhaps Dell will make an offer.
Regarding the Office 365 cloud outage...that's hardly chicken little, Paul. I strongly disagree with your reasoning. 2 hours can add up to thousands of $ of lost productivity in manufacturing. I wonder if those businesses using Office 365 had contract clauses to protect them against outages.

Wow.
If there was ever a clear indication of the reality of the 'Post PC' era, HP quitting the PC business has got to be it.
Especially since HP are citing the move to Tablets (read iPad) as the reason.
This has got to have all the alarm bells ringing in Redmond.
Re: Office 365 outage.
Doesn't anybody think this is serious? If my company had no email access for several hours, I'd think that was pretty disastrous. Next time it might be more than just email.
With an on-going track record like this, who would trust enterprise level operations to the Microsoft cloud?
Re: Apple 'thuggery'.
So it's not OK now to protect your IP when you believe it's being ripped off?
Why would anybody bother to innovate, if it was OK for someone else to steal your hard work and investment in Product Development?
Through copying and blatant rip-offs, Samsung own 9% of a market that shouldn't belong to them.
Surely that's the best definition of anti-competitiveness.
IP protection FORCES competitors to truly innovate, not just copy.

I don't think the PC business is hurting just because of tablets (iPads, I guess). It seems to me that PCs no longer have to be replaced at a rapid rate. A three, four, five year old computer is still quite powerful. We have five year old Core 2 Duo's that will perform well for at least another two or three years.

@nim - What you are saying is true at our house too, with the iPad and Touchpad. But, the purchases did not replace a PC...only a supplemental PC. There is a difference. We still use the PC to keep the iPad backed up and synced among many other things.
It will be interesting, because HP also says that they plan to continue to support and license the OS. I think that it is over for WebOS, unless someone outright buys it from HP. The licensing model will not work in my opinion.
http://thisismynext.com/2011/08/18/hp-not-walking-away-webos-exclusive-details/
"webOS GBU VP Stephen DeWitt made it clear that HP intends to continue to work on webOS and likely intends to license it. DeWitt was adamant, saying several times We are not walking away from webOS. "

@BananaJr:
You're so right.
Unfortunately all that bad news for the WinfanBois is all too much.
It really is like watching the evil empire implode. Slowly at first. But it's definitely gathering pace.
Fantastic entertainment.

@nim55
I 2nd that same story in my house instead of upgrading my Wifes laptop or my macbook we got a ipad for all the sitting on the couch stuff....Also my 11 year old son got a crappy Netbook last year for xmas he will be getting a ipad this year instead of a new netbook or laptop...
Im sure thats the story everywhere ppl buying ipads/tablets and keeping old computers around a little longer.

Tayme said: "I still don't think that a lot of people are buying iPads as PC replacements, since thus far, you can't really replace a PC with an iPad."
That's not true, Tayme. In our household I would have bought a laptop for myself for casual use around the house and at coffeeshops, but with my iPad I no longer need to buy an additional laptop. Sure, there are things that can't be done easily or conveniently on an iPad. When that happens I use my wife's laptop or our main desktop computer. But for the other +95% of the time, the iPad works just fine - and even better than a laptop for some things. That's one less laptop in the world due to the iPad in our house. So, yes, iPads are replacing PCs for many consumer sales. Will iPads replace PCs completely? Will I replace all our computers with iPads? No. But there's no doubt that iPads are stealing many sales that would have otherwise gone to laptops and desktops.

infiniteloop: How can you on the one hand call Windows 8 Tablets vaporware and on the other hand call them "some bulky, slow, heavy slab running software that wasn't designed for it."?
Seems inconsistent to me.

@infiniteloop - You see, that is why nobody talks to you here. I tried, but it is impossible to have an intelligent conversation with you. I stated my opinion and said that it was my opinion several times. The fact is that many people agree with that opinion...and yes, if enough people are of that opinion, changes can be made. In the US, we call that democracy. This round of patent disputes may very well be what causes that change to happen.
Feel free to go back to your juvenile rants now. They suit you well. (Yeah, yeah...I know...name calling and all)

Apple Trying to Convince Europe to Ban All Samsung Galaxy Smartphones and Tablets
"There's competition and then there's outright thuggery."
Competition being defined as "anything Microsoft does", which is okay, and "outright thuggery" being defined as "anything Apple does", which is not.
Oh, and on that constant refrain from Ace Reporter Thurrott that that iPad would "have no effect on PC sales", it kinda looks like that folks running HP have reached a different conclusion.
Via daringfireball,
The tablet effect is real, and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations, Apotheker says, explaining the movement of consumers from PCs to tablets as one of the problems with the PC division. So H-P is exploring options for its unit that may include separation through spinoff or other transactions.
Translation: Were getting out of the PC business because of the iPad.
But, hey, who you gonna believe, Paul or the execs running the largest PC vendor in the world?

The news of this week shows why using shipped units is an inaccurate way of reporting numbers. Touchpad shipped 250k units but only sold 25k. Meanwhile Apple shipped AND sold every iPad they made.
Secondly I'm not so sure it's the iPad that pushed HP out of the PC business. I think it's the inability of the Ultrabook initiative to compete with Macbook Air on price that did it. As hard as it is to believe and I'm sure over Paul's deep protestations Apple is now a price leader. Most of the top tier tablet competitors released their tablet at $499 and not $399. And lately a lot of hardware manufactures have asked Intel to reduce the price of the Ultrabook chip sets. The netbook market is in the toilet and even with lower end laptops selling under $800 no one is making any money at those prices.
So refute all you want but the latest events of a regression in PC growth and HP's exit from the PC business happened for a reason and whatever the cause the effect is that a PC with Windows 7 selling for under $1,000 is no longer a value proposition for customers and HP feels that can't make any money in that space.
and @Tayme I am also saddened to see the TouchPad get cut. After the presentation at HP Discovery this year I had high hopes for the device in the Enterprise. I thought it had all the right answers for an IT dept looking for a tablet to deploy.

@de Silentio - That coupled with economic conditions have slowed PC growth. I still don't think that a lot of people are buying iPads as PC replacements, since thus far, you can't really replace a PC with an iPad. You can supplement a PC, though. Will that change eventually - most definitely. When - who knows, but I don't think that it will come with iOS 5.

That's a very gloomy prediction Tayme.
Are your 'Security Breeches' too tight again?
Apple now is nothing like the Apple Steve Jobs was ousted from all those years ago.
Apple has a very strong, intelligent management team, several layers deep.
They are focused and motivated.
Apple's ongoing success will be due to the 'Start-Up' mindset that pervades everything they are and do.
To strive to not just be the best, but to continue to improve.
This is evident in their products.
This will be Steve Jobs' most important legacy.

@de Silentio Vaporware vs. a shipping product? Who does that in today's market? No one trusts Microsoft with vaporware anymore. If the Turkish Government relies on some manufacturer to be named later and thinks they will get 15 million tablets at a lower cost than an iPad that ships on time will have a bunch of 12 year olds on their hands by the time they have a tablet. Microsoft can't even get an update to a phone out in a timely manner. Look at all the tablets Microsoft has announced since CES '10. Few have seen the light of day and none have had an impact.

@infiniteloop: I merely mentioned a current MS tablet that did not fit your description of MS tablets as bulky and heavy.
@BJ: I wouldn't compare vaporware to real world, that's what Paul thinks MS is doing, though. So, when IL commented, I thought he was making accusations about future hardware (since that's what Paul was talking about).
But to speak to your comment, I wouldn't give school aged children iPads. In fact, I work in a k12 school district and there is no place for the iPad in schools. Unless they are used as toys.
So, if I was Turkish, I would rather wait and see what MS comes up with before I made a decision.
RE: Vaporware: MS does deliver every now and then. Project Natal was scorned when it was vaporware and now it is one of the most technologically advanced gaming systems.

@infiniteloop - There is nothing that I don't get about your post. I agree...real intellectual property should be protected. The shape/size of a device, the grid of icons, and the tapping on the screen to activate a program are not intellectual property in my opinion. Multi-touch and certain gestures are stretching the definition of intellectual property. They have been around for a very long time and have evolved to what Apple, Samsung, HTC, Microsoft, Palm, and others have put into devices over the last several years. Many people would agree that the US patent system is broken. I don't know much about various other country's systems, but if they work anything like the US system, then they are broken, too. There is nothing that you or anyones else can say that will make me think that these concepts should be patentable today. Even the operating systems on which they are used are just evolved versions of decades old platforms.

@yoshi - Right now, that is true. How long can that be sustained? Certainly not forever. Like I said below - Apple is the new Microsoft and Microsoft is the new IBM. If you have any business sense, you know it is inevitable. Steve Jobs will not remain the leader forever - and a lot of people think that without him, Apple may flounder again, just as they did the first time that they fired him.

Re: Turkish 15 Million tablet bid.
The Turks are nice friendly people and many live simple lives.
But they are not stupid.
They are already familiar with the iPad (and iPhone for that matter). As I have witnessed from my business trips there.
I hope they get the technology they deserve, not some bulky, slow, heavy slab running software that wasn't designed for it.

@tayme,
"But to speak to your comment, I wouldn't give school aged children iPads. In fact, I work in a k12 school district and there is no place for the iPad in schools. Unless they are used as toys."
I disagree. K12 is a huge range. I'm not sure they make sense in 1st grade, but they DEFINITELY have a place in the upper grades. My daughter is entering 11th grade and we got her an iPad over the summer. She does everything except her Objective C coding on the iPad. It's a dayplanner, notetaker, calendar, lightweight word processor (mostly google docs so it synchs seamlessly to her iMac), graphing tool, calculator, facebook, camera, video camera, phone in a pinch via Skype, and on and on...
I'm old, so I still prefer the paradigm of a desktop shrunk down, ie, a laptop, but my sense is the kids are very happy and productive with smartphones and tablets.

@Banana Jr.
Exactly.
Re webOs:
You need to remember that these days its not all about what the IT department want.
It's about what people want to use to get things done.
HP partly threw in the towel with webOs because they were dismayed to see that webOs ran more than twice as fast on an iPad2 than on their own lacklustre hardware.
That probably explains the reports of sluggish performance in reviews.
They probably realised then and there that they could no longer compete with Apple in that space.

How confident can Apple be in their legal department if they are manipulating photos that are entered as evidence in the suits against Samsung? Not only do they not show the size appropriately, they also don't show the homescreen on the Samsung devices side by side with the honme screen on the Apple devices. As said before, these patent wars are getting out of hand on all sides - but at least be honest in the evidence that you are presenting.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/15/did-apple-alter-photos-of-the-samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-in-its-inj/
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/19/did-apple-shrink-the-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-in-dutch-lawsuit-filing/

@infiniteloop - The headlines ask the question...read the articles - somebody manipulated the images. Who do you suppose that was? Can you answer why Apple showed the home screen on one device and not on the other? Was it to show the grid of icons and to claim that they "invented" or "patented" that? Sorry, that was around way before iOS.
Regardless, the patent wars are only going to hurt consumers. That is, after all, who we all are.
By the way, I will respond only to rational posts and ignore the childlike posts. Have a great weekend!

@Chuckb84: Good counterpoint. I shouldn't have been so brass. However, the way that my department sees it, we can do all of those things on 11" netbooks (with 97% keyboards) for $400. When you are talking about putting a device in every kids hand, that extra $100 makes a huge difference. In addition, educational software, both instructive and administrative, is heavily flash based. I don't necessarily think that Flash is the best development platform, but that's what's available for education (both on the Interent and as local software).
So, what I should say is that larger sized netbooks have a better place in education than iPads.

Tayme:
Any tampered with evidence is wrong, plain and simple. If that is what the lawyers did, then that is inexcusable.
However stealing IP is wrong too.
Even you must admit that an awful lot of Samsung's products look very like Apple's.
But this is not just about how the things look, it's about stolen functional IP too.

@chuck - Not my quote...but I agree with you. Once the kids are in maybe middle school, and definitely high school a tablet is perfect for the reasons that you stated. In fact, I'm pretty old myself, and I like using mine for most of those same things.

@infiniteloop: Well, that makes even less sense. The HP Slate isn't bulky or heavy. Is it slow? Sure.
However, Paul clearly says that MS is most likely barganing with future tablets and not current tablets.